Ian Burge & Stephen Edwards

Health Cuts Put Workers Under Pressure

(January 1976)

From Militant, No. 339, 21 January 1976, p. 2.
Transcribed by Iain Dalton.
Marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).

Several weeks ago the Militant predicted that the health
workers’ struggle would reach a new pitch as cuts sank deeper
towards the end of the financial year.

Last Wednesday trouble flared at St Bartholomew’s, the City of
London’s famous teaching hospital, as management took on ancillary
staff in what union leaders see as an act of deliberate provocation,
testing union support before further cuts are tried.

Victimised

Porters in the casualty department have traditionally volunteered
to collect the notes of newly admitted patients when no clerical
staff were available to do the job. Recently, however, staff in all
departments have been run down as management have not replaced staff
who have retired or left. This is the policy known as “natural
wastage”, whereby management expect the same duties to be done by
lesser staff.

Eventually patients were being kept waiting for up to fifty
minutes while notes, which are sometimes hard to find, were
collected; and finally porters have refused to collect the notes. A
letter from management was issued “instructing” portering staff
to continue to undertake this extra duty, in defiance of agreements
previously made with unions. When this was refused three porters were
instantly suspended.

This was a direct challenge to the union as one of [the] three,
Maurice Kolander, is a NUPE branch secretary. This also broke an
elementary proviso against victimisation, in agreement with
management that a full-time official of the union must be present
whenever a member of staff who is an officer of the union is
disciplined.

Also simmering in the background of the dispute is a ploy by
management to improve new rotas on certain ancillary staffs, in order
to cut out overtime. This could cut the earnings of those involved by
£6–£12 per week.

Overworked

Portering staff themselves are, life other hospital workers,
overworked, not idle. In a typical night-shift last week the two men
on duty in Casualty not only had to deal with some sixteen
admissions, but were expected to deal with enquiries, act as
messengers carrying blood smaples, X-ray plates and deal with an
itinerant drunk who reappeared no less than four times throughout the night.

Drugs addicts, meths drinkers and every kind of “social
casualty” are just as likely to turn up, to be dealt with as
sympathetically as time, facilities and the other duties will allow.
At the same time porters must be on standby for ambulances in case of
an emergency!

A mass meeting voted unanimously for strike action without even
emergency cover, such was the mood of anger. The blame for any
suffering inflicted upon patients was placed squarely upon the
shoulders of the management, and the withdrawal of all ancillary
labour, together with the mounting of pickets to cut off supplies,
was seen as the best way to bring the dispute to a speedy end, and
management to its senses.

Support

Support from other workers was immediate. Staff at the Hackney and
Eastern hospitals and nearby St Marks walked out. Post Office workers
refused to cross picket lines as did drivers delivering oxygen from
BOC. The strike has been so solidly effective that management has
withdrawn the suspensions and are willing to discuss with the unions.
It seems likely that the cutting off of the supply of oxygen was
crucial. Medical staff approached management and warned them that
patients’ safety could not be guaranteed unless they stood down.